G leads me off the dance floor, and I can see a hundred eyes clinging to us. I know I only looked so dazzling out there just now because of his expertise, but still. I feel purely happy in a way I haven’t in years. Suddenly, it all feels possible.
Then, I see him. He’s getting up from a chair in the courtyard where people sit drinking wine and eating empanadas, enjoying the mild evening and watching the dancers. I’m tempted to think he’s nothing more than another ghost made material by my subconscious, the way I keep hearing Luke’s laugh in crowded rooms or seeing Penny in the faces of every petite woman I see. But his eyes are locked solidly on mine, those warm familiar blues. I feel my mouth drop into an O. I tell G I’ll meet him at Red Door in a little while. I’m walking away before he can react, my tether to him unspooling.
“Who is that?” G grasps at my hand, barely missing it. His jealousy might excite me a little any other time, but right now, I just want to get to him.
“A friend from home,” I say. “Go, I’ll be there soon.” I feel him bristle at being told what to do, but I’m already moving away from him.
“Liz,” G calls out as I get a couple of steps away. I turn around and he winks at me; I smile and roll my eyes.
“Blair,” I whisper as I put my arms around his neck, melting into his arms, taking in his scent, which is of every good thing about home, everything I miss about my past. “What are you doing here?”
If the fact of his solid, lean body in my arms wasn’t so certain, I wouldn’t believe it was him. How long has he been here watching?
“What do you think I’m doing here, Bomber? Kjersti told me she ran into you. She e-mailed me and said you were living here. She knows I’ve been trying to track you down.”
For a moment, I just stare at him, thunderstruck. “You came all the way down here to see me?”
He shrugs. “You weren’t answering my e-mails.”
“So you just figured you’d stake out the Plaza Dorrego until I appeared?”
“I had a few free days before I had to get to training camp, and what the hell else am I going to do with all the miles I’ve racked up on LAN? Besides, it worked, didn’t it? I might have had a backup plan or two. Now, let’s go get some dinner. Bomber, you’ve got some explaining to do.” He throws one of his long arms around my shoulders.
Even though I’ve been hiding from him, I’ve overwhelmed by joy at seeing him. Seeing him here on these streets that we walked together before it all came crashing down, it’s like we’ve managed to fold time in on itself. Is this what I’ve been hoping to do all along? “I know just the place,” I tell him. “You’ll never eat a better steak in your life.”
We get a table at La Brigada and I can’t get over the fact that he’s here. He stares at me, and I wonder what he’s thinking.
“You look great by the way,” he says as we sit down.
I can’t help myself: “I’m so out of shape.”
He laughs. “I see you still haven’t learned to accept a compliment. So,” he says, tearing into the bread and dragging a piece through a dish of olive oil. Blair and Luke eat more or less nonstop, always have. “Do you want to start by explaining why Zorro out there called you Liz?”
I was hoping he’d disregard it. But of course G had done it on purpose, to stake a claim in the face of this stranger.
“I took my middle name and put it with my mom’s maiden name.”
“Clever.” He nods. “Why all the cloak-and-dagger?”
“You know what it’s been like back home. I wasn’t sure how big the story had been here and there are a lot of expats . . .” Unlike Luke, Blair hadn’t looked away when everything got messy. He’d kept calling me, kept coming to see me, put up with me when I was hysterical and when I was taciturn. Didn’t ask me to recount any details when I didn’t want to, and listened to every last gruesome one when I did. Part of the reason, maybe the only reason, I’d wanted to get away from Blair was because I was embarrassed about how much I’d leaned on him. Even seeing him now, I feel the sting of my own vulnerability.
“So you come to a place where no one knows you and you change your name so no one can find you.” He reaches across the table to take my hand. “It’s got flair, Katie.”
“I also lead tours here, I have Americans in my group all the time. I’ve had people nearly recognize me. If the context wasn’t so bizarre, they’d see right through me even without the name.”
“Is it helping?” he asks. “Getting away?”
“As much as anything can help.”
“I understand.” He does and he doesn’t, of course. The isolating, maddening thing is that as much as he wants to, he never quite will. I don’t blame him, but I can’t say I don’t illogically resent it, and not just with him but also with everyone. Of course, of course I’m not that special in having been through a tragedy; my suffering isn’t at all unique, but the circumstances are. There are no support groups for people whose family members have Munchausen syndrome by proxy, there are no gala fund-raisers for research, no 10K runs. There’s no shared language of healing the way there is around other traumas. I’ve yet to find a single other refugee from this particular war.
Blair and I retreat into some small talk. I tell him about Cali, about Gemma and Edward with their upper-class drama and his magnificent house. Blair devours his bife de chorizo and goes into gratifying ecstasies over it. The waiters seem to find the speed at which Blair consumes his steak—not to mention an entire provoleta—marvelous. I tell him about my tango lessons. I don’t want him to think I’ve been doing nothing here; I want him to see that I’ve accomplished something.
“Look at you, twinkle toes! That’s an unexpected twist. Though I know you can do anything you throw yourself into. If you’d come down here and learned to be a brain surgeon, I wouldn’t be half surprised.”
“Gianluca is such a good teacher, he’s amazing.” I hear my own voice when I say his name and I’m a little embarrassed at the sound of it coming out of my mouth. It’s as though somehow the moment I mention him, Blair will know I’m sleeping with him.
“That guy from the plaza?” Blair scrunches his nose. “He looks like a sleazebag.”
I laugh. “Excuse me! You’ve never even met him, how can you tell?”
“Men can tell, trust me.”
I roll my eyes. “You just don’t understand tango, you heathen,” I say, trying to wave him off. But I feel the heat in my cheeks, wondering if he only saw us dancing or if he saw us kissing too. Not that it’s any of Blair’s business who I’m kissing, or dancing, or sleeping with.
Blair shrugs. Is he jealous? My thoughts are scrambled. I still can’t believe he’s sitting in front of me. Then I think of G, who is expecting me to join them at Red Door. Since returning from Ushuaia, I’ve slipped back into an almost single-minded obsession, counting the minutes until I see him again, fiending for the physical rush of his touch.
“Will you come meet my friends?” I ask Blair as we’re finishing up dinner. “We’re having drinks at the bar where my friend Cali works.”
“It’s not like I have other plans, Cleary.” He smiles. He’s as easygoing as he’s always been—so unlike his pigheaded brother.
When we arrive, Cali is leaning over the bar, chatting with Gemma, who sits with a glass of red wine in front of her. Unbeknownst to the two of them, they’ve become the focal point of the men in the bar: the beautiful bartender and the boisterous blonde. I call out a hello and feel the energy of the room taking Blair and me in. My arm is looped in his; I haven’t wanted to let go of him since he arrived, as though he might disappear if I do.
“Blair, these are my friends Cali and Gemma, Cali, Gem, this is Blair.”
Gemma startles and nearly knocks over her wineglass. “Blair, Blair?”
Cali cracks up. “Smooth.”
“The one and only,” I say, looking over at him as he shakes their hands.
“Been talking lots of trash about me, I see?” He glances back and winks at
me.
“Oh, so much trash.”
“Of course you’re him,” Gemma says. “My god, look at you, you Viking!”
“Nice to meet you. Glad you’ve been looking after . . . our girl.” He catches himself before he says Katie. With him in the room, the alias feels preposterous.
“Tiger, there you are,” Gianluca says in Spanish, appearing from nowhere, curling his arm around my neck, and kissing me on the cheek in a way that feels proprietary. “Who’s this?” He nods his head at Blair.
“Blair,” I say in English, trying and failing to ease myself out from under G’s arm. “This is Gianluca, my friend and our tango instructor.”
“Mucho gusto,” G says reaching out his free hand, which Blair regards and, I imagine, considers removing from his body before shaking. “And how do you know my dear friend Liz?”
“We go way back,” he says simply.
“Blair’s a skier too,” I say, removing myself to grab the drink from the bar that Cali has set down for me, staking a more neutral territory between the two men. “An Olympic silver medalist, actually,” I say, and barely meaning to, I reach over and squeeze his elbow. I’m so proud of him.
“Silver,” G repeats, nodding. Dick, I think.
“If K . . . if Liz had been there, she would have gotten the gold,” Blair says. “But next time.”
I know he’s trying to be encouraging, telling me he still believes in me, but it’s like a knife to the gut, the mention of next time. I’ll be thirty-four next time, a long shot even without everything else that’s happened.
“Or maybe she stays here and becomes a tango champion,” G says. “She’s very talented. She’s my favorite student,” he adds in a way that seems designed to ensure that Blair knows we’re sleeping together.
“You’ll do anything you want,” Blair says. “You deserve to.”
Gemma gracefully inserts herself into the conversation and eases the tension, detailing the adventures we’ve had since I’ve arrived. I’m relieved to have Gemma in this moment with her levity and her talkativeness.
When Blair heads off to the bathroom, G wastes no time.
“So who is this guy? An ex-boyfriend?”
“He’s one of my best friends from home. We’ve know each other since I was five. You’re not jealous, are you?” I say the last part teasingly, but he takes immediate offense and laughs coldly.
“No, Liz, I’ve got nothing to be jealous of. Anyway, pardon me, I see a friend of mine over there, so.” He leans in and gives me a swift kiss on the cheek. I watch him in disbelief. Angelina is near the pool tables with several of her girlfriends. I don’t know when she arrived; I’ve been too distracted. Her face lights up when she sees him heading toward her. He takes her in a big showy hug, picking her up in his arms, twirling her around.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I say under my breath.
Gemma looks aghast. “Really?”
“Whatever,” I say, feeling not whatever about it in the least. Blair comes back. “Let’s get out of here,” I tell him, and we say goodbye to Cali and Gemma.
Blair walks me back to my apartment. My mind is racing. Is G really this petty? Am I supposed to be flattered that he’s jealous, that he’s now trying to make me jealous? Am I jealous? (Yes.) All I want is to spend a little time with my friend, who’s come all this way. I don’t want to be thinking about G right now. I lean over and take Blair’s arm. He smiles down at me, and suddenly I no longer am. Instead, I’m transported, walking with him through these same streets as though it’s the first time. Is it only in retrospect that it felt like the beginning of something? Or not the beginning, because Blair has always been there, before that moment and after it and still. It was his voice on the phone; his face in the gallery; he was in the waiting room after my surgery; he told me in a thousand small ways that he would stand by me come what may. Not Luke. With Luke there were always conditions, I see that now; our love was based on a contract we’d signed when we were too young to know what life could be.
“Do you want to come see my place?” I say to Blair when we arrive at my door on Defensa.
“Of course.” He follows me in through the lobby into the courtyard, and his eyes fill with wonder. “Wow,” he says, ducking his head to clear the archway covered in ivy.
“This is the place,” I say. We head into my tiny apartment. “Small, I know, but I love it.”
“It’s cozy,” Blair says. We sit on the edge of the bed, which is really the only place to sit.
“So what do you think?”
“Of?”
I shrug. “I don’t know, everything! My apartment, the steaks, my friends.”
“Your place is great.” He smiles. “The steak was the best I’ve ever had in my life. As for your friends, I stand by my opinion of Zorro. Gemma seems a bit nuts, but she’s fun. I do like Cali,” he says.
“Of course you do.” I laugh. “Everyone is in love with her.”
He shakes his head. “I don’t mean it like that and you know it.”
“What do I know?” I say, smiling. “She’s awfully beautiful.” Am I testing him? Surely not. Fuck, my head is a mess.
“You know,” he says, turning to face me, “who I love.”
I feel my jaw drop a little, and then he’s kissing me. Blair, my oldest, dearest friend. For a moment, I’m lost in it all. And then I pull back.
“Oh Blair,” I say, staring down into my lap with my fingertips to my lips. Suddenly, my heart—which I’d already thought was dust—fragments further. What have I lost by being with Luke? I had one chance to choose—but I never knew there was a choice! I always thought both of them were so far out of my league—and I blew it. Like I blew my shot at gold, like I’ve blown everything.
“I’m sorry, Bomber, was I out of line? I’d never want to . . .”
Oh, god, he thinks I didn’t want him to kiss me, when, in fact, I have just realized that I did want him to—despite G, despite Luke, despite everything. Blair is someone I know I love, but in which way and how?
“Oh it’s not that, Blair.” I take his hand and I’m squeezing it so hard, my knuckles are white. “But we can’t. You know we can’t.”
“Why?” he asks gently. “Why not?”
“Because of Luke, for one thing.”
Blair sighs. I’m certain this was the answer he was expecting. In reality, of course, the issue of Luke is only for starters.
“That can’t be the reason.”
“Isn’t there like, some bro code about this?” Everything changed when I got together with Luke, and changed again when we split up. But I’m holding on to the idea that there must be some way to have both of them in my life still. I wish I’d never been with Luke at all, I suddenly realize. People say they don’t want to jeopardize a friendship for romance and it sounds like an excuse, but it isn’t. The trade wasn’t worth it.
“Bro code? What are we, sixteen?”
“You know what I mean, Blair. Don’t pretend this isn’t complicated.”
He groans so heavily it nearly shakes the bed and buries his face in his hands for a moment. He turns back to look at me. “Do you want to know the truth, Katie?” I know he’s serious because he never uses my first name. “Luke probably loved you as much as he could love anyone, but it’s not half of what you deserve. I love my little brother to death, but he’s the most selfish guy on the planet, and you know this. And anyway he’s . . .” Blair catches himself, shakes his head.
“He’s what?” I say, feeling my throat constrict, because I know. Even in the midst of all this, Blair is trying to protect me by not telling me.
“Never mind, it’s not important.”
“Go on,” I say, “finish your sentence.” I need to hear it. This thing with Luke is a defining feature of my life before—I need to kill it. If I have any lingering illusions about what I still mean to him, they need to go. I know what Blair’s saying about Luke, about who he is, is true. A hot bubble of rage boils up from my
stomach, and I realize that, despite what I’ve told myself, I haven’t forgiven Luke for the way he handled everything: he should have either risen to the challenge or had the courage to leave me.
“He’s seeing someone,” I say. Blair’s silence confirms it. I laugh, and it sounds like the beginning of a sob. “Well, I couldn’t have expected anything else from the big man, especially with his new gold medals. Just tell me it isn’t fucking Sarah.”
Blair at last cracks a smile. “It’s not Sarah,” he says.
“Just dating every liftie and coed he can find or what? Making up for lost time?” Blair shakes his head but won’t look at me. “No,” I say, feeling hollow. “It’s one person. It’s serious.”
“He’s living with someone,” Blair says quietly.
Luke slutting it up all over Park City would be one thing; his heart belonging to someone is something else entirely.
“Well,” I say, my voice too loud, shrill, “he has the right to move on, doesn’t he?”
Blair ignores the question. “You know what, Katie? I have to just say this. He was a goddamned idiot to let you go. He took you for granted, and he shouldn’t have bailed on you.”
“I wasn’t what he signed up for anymore,” I say, shaking my head.
“Don’t make excuses for him. If that had been our family, you would have done anything to help him, and you know it. I know it. Luke will never have anyone in his life again who is one-tenth of the woman you are.”
He looks down, then glances back up at me. It moves me to see him so vulnerable. I want to comfort him; I want to kiss him; I want to run away; I want to crawl into his lap and disappear there.
“Blair,” I say finally.
“Katie.”
“This is overwhelming. What you’re saying, that you’re here. Don’t get me wrong,” I say, grasping his hand. “I’ve never been happier to see anyone in my life, it’s just . . . I don’t even know who I am anymore.”
We Came Here to Forget Page 28